Les, Edna and Barry take one final Aussie bow in Perth

Date: February 11 2013

To farewell Barry Humphries is to farewell several of Australia's most famous – or infamous – icons at once.

Humphries donned his lavender-rinsed wig, among many others, for the last time in Australia on Sunday at Perth's Crown Casino – a far cry from the smaller venues he used to perform at when he started his career more than five decades ago.

At 78, the man responsible for bringing to the world the "housewife gigastar" Dame Edna Everage, the repulsive Sir Les Patterson, the paedophile Father Gerard Patterson and the ghostly old Sandy Stone, maintained the energy and commanding stage presence of someone a third of his age.

"It's extraordinary that the character has lasted," Humphries said of his most well-loved and widely-recognised creation, Dame Edna, who took shape in 1955.

"It's so long ago since I invented her.

"In a way, she seems always to have existed.

"She began as rather a dowdy person and then became the best-dressed woman in theatre."

Dame Edna was created during Humphries' time at the Melbourne Theatre Company in his 20s but his career was spent doing a great many things more than cross-dressing.

He took the stage in several plays, including the first Australian production of Samuel Beckett's Waiting For Godot, before moving to London and appearing in Oliver! and Maggie May.

He looks fondly upon his time on Broadway.

"I think [my career highlights were] when the Queen came to the show in the 70s and then my opening in New York in Broadway, 10 years ago. That was a great thrill," he said.

"Also the Tony Award, which is the top Broadway award, that I got a couple of years later.

"And this tour has been such a joy for me because I had such a marvellous director in Simon Phillips. I always directed it myself and I realised that I did need someone slightly better than me to direct.

"So it was a slight exercise in humility and it was very interesting for me to take guidance."

Humphries final show, Eat, Pray, Laugh: Barry Humphries Farewell Tour, opened in the garden of Sir Les Patterson and involved thanking "the traditional owners of this land, the Rinehart family" before the character that embodies the most vulgar aspects of the Australian male referred to Prime Minister Julia Gillard as "fanta pants", Indians as "curry munchers", Chinese as "chinks" and "slopeys" and gay people as "pillow biters, fur traders and carpet munchers".

Sir Les' brother (created just last year for the show), Father Gerard Patterson, arrived and did his best to get as close to the young male pianist as possible before the alarm on his ankle bracelet fired off and raised the ghost of the elderly man Sandy Stone, who delivered a sombre monologue around the disdain with which the aged population are treated and the bleak state of Australia's aged care system.

The satirical embodiment of both Australian housewives and vain celebrities, Dame Edna stormed onto the stage atop a giant glittering elephant, wearing a sparkling dress that was as outrageously over-the-top as ever and cried "Have you missed me, Perth? I'm going to miss you even more after today!".

An ugly product of the false world of Hollywood and the cult of celebrity, Edna laughed at the front row guests with their "beige" bedrooms and brick and tile houses, the "paupers" in the cheapest seats, the elderly who had been forced into "brutal relocation" by their family and her young Balinese boyfriend, whom she referred to as the "Justin Bieber of Monkey Forrest Road".

"The characters you've seen [in Eat, Pray, Laugh!] are the ones I enjoy the most," Humphries said.

"Even Les Patterson, who represents extreme vulgarity, nonetheless seems particularly popular with elderly ladies. It's amazing how many old ladies you'd think would be shocked by Les, seem to love it.

"I suppose, well, he reminds them of their late husbands."

After spending two thirds of his life in alter ego, it's no wonder that Humphries, whose creative process for the characters is ongoing, admits that at times he hears them "muttering".

"I never think about my stage characters, fortunately, when I'm in the real world," he said.

"Not that I think it is the real world, I think it's almost as fictitious as the world on the stage.

"I put my characters into a sort of box and I close the lid, but sometimes I can hear them muttering.

"I'm always doing research for these characters. Even the ghostly Sandy Stone, who is a kind old figure from the past, he represents really the Melbourne of my childhood and always needs more material but I have to look into my own memory for that."

In reflecting on more than 50 years in costume, Humphries said "the creative process is too complicated to analyse, all I know is I only do these shows for my own enjoyment and if I stop enjoying it, I won't do it."

The show ended in a standing ovation (albeit as guided by Dame Edna) before Humphries took the stage, as himself, in a double-breasted black velvet dinner jacket, still sporting one of the dame's glittering diamond rings.

"That was a great conclusion to this tour... I want to thank you for turning up on so many occasions, especially tonight," he told the audience, before suggesting a John Farnham-esque series of farewell tours.

"Promise me one thing.: that each and every one of you will come along to my next farewell show."

The man who has penned more than a dozen books and a vast collection of TV series and has been the subject of many prize-winning portraits will return to creative outlets outside the spotlight.

"I've got a lot of writing I want to do. I've only written 14 books and I've got to write some more," he said.

"I also like painting, I'm a very cheerful painter. I've had exhibitions of my paintings. They're not masterpieces, but they're quite good."

Whether he does return to the stage or doesn't, it isn't the last time audiences will see the dame and her friends.

"Although this tour, farewell tour, ended [in Australia] in Perth, it will be continuing in Scotland at the end of the year and in London, Wales, then in New York, Washington, Chicago and Boston," Humphries said.

"So, the farewell tour, I'll be waving goodbye for a few years yet.

His reason for leaving the bright lights of production behind and farewelling his adoring audiences is succinct and one echoed by performers worldwide.

"I will appear in Australia but it will only be occasional performances, not touring," he said.